Today I traveled to Schwerin in order to sign a few documents for my internship. Upon arriving, my boss informed me that I was very lucky, for a decision had recently been passed down that all my successors at the company would be payed half the salary I was receiving. In fact, the new head honcho had wanted to reduce my pay by half, but I had already signed the work contract clearly stipulating my pay in November.
Readers may not be surprised that I took this as a golden opportunity to explain InWent's subsidy scheme to my boss. As it happens, I'm at more or less an indifference point at my current salary: if my salary were reduced so that InWent subsidized my rent, I'd have about the same pocket money as I will with the higher salary. What's really striking is that even if my salary were reduced by half, I wouldn't lose much pocket money because then I'd be exempt from paying taxes, which eat up 20% of my monthly paycheck. In short, as I explained to my boss, they actually could reduce the salary by half without reducing my material well-being by much at all.

Advice that will come in handy when drawing up work contracts next year, I imagine.